


Ghost of a Chance

by 126916912



Series: Deleted VeggieSamosa Works [4]
Category: The Boyz (Korea Band)
Genre: Gen, M/M, death mention, ghost - Freeform, seance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-27 07:01:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30118959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/126916912/pseuds/126916912
Summary: jaehyun gets a blast from the past in the form of a person who shouldn't be able to drop by at their leisure.
Relationships: Lee Jaehyun | Hyunjae/Lee Sangyeon
Series: Deleted VeggieSamosa Works [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2216148





	Ghost of a Chance

Jaehyun sighed when he got into his bedroom at the end of a long day to find the lamp at the side of his bed rattling violently. He had planned to change into something comfortable and try out a new recipe in his Iranian cookbook before slobbing around on his sofa whilst catching up on writing reviews for all his recent Amazon orders and deciding whether the youtuber Jacob recommended would be a good source of guitar tutorials before passing out at quarter to midnight. But he had a visitor so those plans were subject to change. 

Knowing that Sangyeon’s own family found him irritating at times like this made Jaehyun feel less guilty about how short he was when the non-corporeal reminder of a life not lived invited himself over. 

Jaehyun could appreciate how tiresome it would become each time Sangyeon possessed framed photographs of himself around his family's home and, using his wobbliest and spookiest voice, said things like, "It is I, your dearly departed son! Wooooh! Pay attention to me!" 

It was bad enough when Sangyeon just hinted that he arrived an eternity ago and had to wait around for Jaehyun to finally get home to be pestered. 

"I'm going to get changed," Jaehyun called over to the lamp. "Close your eyes until I say you can look."

"I don't have eyes anyway," the lamp replied pointedly. Jaehyun still turned it to face the wall before getting changed. 

He was looking for a specific set of soft and perhaps overly-baggy clothes but he supposed he must already have worn the T-shirt and jogging bottoms he was looking for. Not that it mattered. It was just Jaehyun and an irritating ghost so nobody to impress was present. 

For a moment Jaehyun considered just walking away and not telling Sangyeon he could look or come out or exist at all, but the first time Jaehyun tried that Sangyeon was upset and called Jaehyun mean. Knowing that too much time had passed suggested Sangyeon actually had been looking but that sort of thing didn't matter either. 

Jaehyun flopped down onto his bed, counted to ten and supposed that was all the preparation he deserved. "Alright, Sangyeon. What do you want?" 

Sangyeon appeared from thin air, looming over Jaehyun's face with a small smile. 

"Why do you have to act like this? Is someone paying you?" 

"With what?" Sangyeon asked, "Ghost money?" 

It must have been something like that. After suppressing his surprise at seeing Sangyeon right above him, Jaehyun sat up and glared at the frustrating ghost. Sangyeon couldn't pretend there wasn't a ghost economy if there was such a thing as ghost theft. 

"Why are you wearing my clothes?" 

Sangyeon floated down to sit on the bed, cross-legged and tugged at the wide sleeves of the T-shirt as though he hadn't realised what he was wearing. He grinned at Jaehyun. "I was bored waiting for you to get back so I looked for something nice to wear. You have lots of nice clothes."

"I know I do. I bought them all for me," Jaehyun pointed out. Then, "You're not even wearing any of my nice clothes. You're just wearing stupid scruffy clothes."

"But they're yours so they're nice," Sangyeon said. 

"Take them off!" 

"I feel the same way but it is impossible for humans and ghosts to-" 

"Give me back my clothes!" 

Sangyeon looked thoughtful at the request and then shook his head. "Even if I take them off, I won't be able to give them back to you. They've lost their physical form now. I think that's how it works," Sangyeon said. Which was ridiculous. If he had time to consider that impossibility it made no sense to intentionally steal from Jaehyun like that. 

"What's wrong with you?" Jaehyun grumbled. 

"Don't be mean. I'm dead, remember."

Jaehyun lobbed a pillow at Sangyeon, wondered why he was surprised when it passed right through him and pirouetted listlessly to the floor. 

"So I made the effort to come and see you and you immediately attack me? What kind of friend are you?" Sangyeon asked. He really had the gall to ask a question like that when he was an uninvited visitor. But Jaehyun had to consider that he'd always been like this. 

Back when they knew each other they were young. Jaehyun could identify bolstered words of fictional past-loves because he had said enough of them in the conversations he'd had around Sangyeon to make himself sound more mature and experienced to see if he could appeal to him - a guy in the year above at school who kept hanging around for no good reason. Jaehyun knew what pretence was back then and he could recognise the same when it came from Sangyeon’s mouth. But Sangyeon had been a shade more shameless and remembered a lot of Jaehyun’s words to bring them up when they were fading from Jaehyun's memory. 

Jaehyun was technically two years older than the Sangyeon making himself comfortable on Jaehyun's bed, and the years he had gained pushed a lot of smaller aspects of daily life away. If events weren't particularly notable they could easily be forgotten. Except the words said by Sangyeon triggered a memory Jaehyun was better off forgetting. 

Sangyeon had a right to be angry when he was seventeen and a secret he'd left in the care of a friend was on the lips of too many others. At the time Jaehyun was sixteen and feeling too much about hearing the secret when it had matured into a fully-fledged rumour. Jaehyun was curious of the veracity of the whispers hidden behind hands. Jaehyun was brimming with dread when he saw the stalwart anger in Sangyeon’s eyes mellowing into defeat with each passing day he had to walk with his head held high, even after run-ins with people who liked to do more than poke fun. Jaehyun was glad; glad something he'd hoped for might unfurl itself from the mess and bloom into something he probably wasn't allowed, glad there was someone around who could relate to the uncertain fear which had felt excessive before Sangyeon’s incident, but worst of all Jaehyun was glad it wasn't him. 

Jaehyun was well-liked, even by upperclassmen, and he was privy to the whims of the richer and brattier students that he might just gain immunity if he paid charity to an unfortunate yet interesting friend. Jaehyun was relaxed enough to appear cocksure to most and that's why he let himself be persistent after a week of spotty attendance had germinated yet more rumours about Sangyeon. There were so many alleged truths to Sangyeon’s absence that Jaehyun was sure the realm of ridiculous was the best place for Sangyeon to re-emerge. 

"You really came," Sangyeon had said, glum and inflection-less. And then he shoved Jaehyun away from the front door roughly. 

"So I made the effort to see you when everyone is speculating about you running off to become a rent-boy and you immediately attack me? What kind of friend are you?" Jaehyun had asked. He existed more comfortably in comedy than the absurd but he liked the idea of hiding in plain sight and Sangyeon had always, always laughed at every one of Jaehyun's attempts to wisecrack. Except for that one incident when Sangyeon’s retort was as flat as the realisation that a promised visit had been fulfilled. 

"We're not friends."

They weren't friends, that much was correct, but they crossed paths enough that there was mutual association between them. Even if it wasn't enough to make an immediate difference to Sangyeon’s school attendance, Jaehyun's persistence in befriending him was a gradual success. They became friends. When Jaehyun was sure he could trust Sangyeon not to pay discourtesy forward he told Sangyeon something he'd never told to anyone he knew in real life. And when Sangyeon said he'd grown tired of being a coward their friendship changed when there was nobody else to see it. 

Jaehyun sighed roughly and pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. Through the kaleidoscopic sparks inside his eyelids Jaehyun still saw a first kiss, tentative and fleeting, and he saw the tightness around Sangyeon’s eyes when a joke was made at his expense because he should have been able to take it by now, and he saw the desperation in Sangyeon’s eyes when he pulled away from a messy kiss and wiped the saliva from the corner of his mouth when he asked Jaehyun if this was a game he'd carried on for eight months, and he saw the curve of gentle reassurance when Sangyeon took the risk to reach for Jaehyun's hand under the table when they were out with students who liked to wolf down as much food as possible between the end of school and the beginning of their tutoring sessions, and he saw Sangyeon introducing Jaehyun to his parents, and he saw all the times Sangyeon transmuted an insecurity into truth, and he saw the last time they ever kissed. 

"Are you alright?" Sangyeon asked. Seeing their past, the only memories he had with Sangyeon, was agonising and Jaehyun didn't want to have to think about them again. But for that he'd need to forget about Sangyeon altogether. 

Jaehyun looked up at Sangyeon over the steeple of his hands. 

"It is low to make me remember things."

Sangyeon shrugged. "I don't have the same luxuries that you do. I can't make new memories like you can. All I have are the memories I made with you."

"Don't say anything like that," Jaehyun said. "You made memories with other people after me. They deserve your excellent company more than I do."

Sangyeon chuckled and rolled up one of his T-shirt sleeves to scratch his shoulder. "I suppose…" 

The hesitation wasn't encouraging but Jaehyun chose to accept things as they were. He would have to go about his evening without anything of note aside from adjusting for a noncorporeal form removing the illusion of pure solitude. 

"Are you claiming you really don't have anywhere better to be tonight than here?" Jaehyun asked. 

"I don't," Sangyeon said. 

It might really have been true but it wasn't what Jaehyun wanted to hear. He wanted to hear that Sangyeon had lived a full life which he couldn't help but continuously revisit even after he was snatched from the world. Instead he was back pestering Jaehyun yet another evening this week. And Jaehyun was humouring a person that no longer existed and making room for him in the living room. 

"You never eat vegetables," Sangyeon noted when Jaehyun took his seat on the sofa beside the ghost after seven minutes of cobbling something rudimentary to eat. He'd have to put off trying out that new recipe for another day, but there was no point in letting the fresh ingredients he bought for it go to waste. 

"You eat some if you like them so much," Jaehyun offered. "Open wide."

Sangyeon closed his mouth tightly and pressed his mouth against Jaehyun's shoulder to laugh without the risk of being fed anything healthy. Not that Jaehyun's tea was particularly healthy. He was getting lazy but he never usually had company to impress. Sangyeon was too easily impressed though. 

Jaehyun's shoulder didn't feel cold like he thought it should, even with Sangyeon laughing against him. Even if it was imagined, the shadow of warmth was the sort of comfort as though he'd been here all along. And since Sangyeon had started turning up Jaehyun had wondered what it would be like if it was true, if Sangyeon had always been there. Perhaps there would be true warmth against Jaehyun's shoulder when Sangyeon laughed and his weight against Jaehyun's side would be a pressure Jaehyun wouldn't need to be a rocket scientist to work out how to feel. 

Or Sangyeon might not have ever existed at this stage in Jaehyun's life. It might not have been worth thinking about. Not when it had already been true for so long. 

Jaehyun could ignore problems that wouldn't affect him too directly. He turned on the TV and tried not to be too charmed by how impressed Sangyeon was by the next episode of the programme they'd sort of been watching together. 

"You really waited for me," Sangyeon grinned as he settled down on the sofa like he was expecting to be around for a while. 

Jaehyun hadn't waited for Sangyeon so much as not been bothered about watching the show on his own. It had been good background noise after Sangyeon had asked how an actress he liked was getting on since he'd lost the chance to see any of her work. But Sangyeon looked happy enough that it would have been unnecessarily mean to clarify matters. 

Jaehyun thought it was weird that the programme they'd ended up watching together was about ghosts but Sangyeon never mentioned anything about it. So Jaehyun just ate his dinner and scrolled through various apps on his phone. Jaehyun pretended he thought this was totally cool and normal too, remembering to look like he agreed every time Sangyeon pointed out how brilliant an actress one of the side-characters was. 

Jaehyun paused the programme by accident, muscle memory picking up the remote control so he wouldn't miss anything when he took his bowl to the kitchen to scrape out his leftovers. When he returned, it was to the captive audience of someone whose eyes he really hadn't seen in too long. 

"What is it?" Jaehyun asked. He wasn't so self-conscious that he'd assume there was anything odd for Sangyeon to focus on his face, but he wasn't used to the way Sangyeon looked at him. Too many years ago to remember, Sangyeon’s gaze was tempered by caution, but this look was too much like the way Sangyeon’s eyes were when he'd decided he didn't need to be embarrassed of honesty. 

Plenty of people looked at Jaehyun but his face had been a point of pride rather than anything that had him feeling so exposed as the eyes of the impossible. 

"Did you miss me," Sangyeon asked, voice airy and quiet in ways it never had been in Jaehyun's memory. Of course the circumstances were far different and it was impressive enough that Sangyeon had the thoughts to speak, let alone a voice to project them into the world. He smiled, a reluctant and lop-sided smile as he continued, "You know. When I died."

It was a dangerous question which didn't have a particularly nice answer. The news had surprised Jaehyun but finding out was three years deep in his memory and even then he was two years clear of knowing Sangyeon at all. He'd tried to move on in his life and dated other people. He was a person who hardly remembered the flavour of first love and he was a person who never had the option of seeking it out once more for its comparison to ambrosia. And Jaehyun had to set his mouth and gulp back his surprise because he had his whole life ahead of him and it was strange to dwell on an acquaintance too long. 

Jaehyun sighed. 

"By the time it happened you were just some guy. Like, yeah you were the first person I ever loved like that but even if you're not supposed to get over first love I had to grow up. There's probably more to life than you putting fruit stickers on my forehead and telling me you want to eat my banana."

Sangyeon scoffed, half a lost laugh which sounded too snotty and tearful for this to be a usual conversation. So he must have come here to wait with some sort of intent. 

"What is it like to meet someone new and fall in love all over again?" 

It was a bad sort of intent. Jaehyun sighed at the question. It wasn't good to think of things like this. But he wasn't about to hurt Sangyeon for no good reason. 

"I wouldn't know. Didn't you date other people after me? Or did you forget?" 

Sangyeon shrugged. "Maybe. I don't know. You said before that I died three years ago, right? All the people that I remember are busy."

"Wow!" Jaehyun clutched his chest. "It's all coming out now. Please don't tell me how far down your list I am, I don't think my heart could take it."

"You're first," Sangyeon said. The shine in his eyes - eyes that shouldn't have been able to see, eyes that Jaehyun shouldn't have had to remember so much about - was too serious. Sangyeon sniffed and quieted at the way his hand couldn't connect to Jaehyun's. 

"You don't have to say that."

"It's true," Sangyeon said, sharp, quick. "You're first. I just checked on a few people after the first time I came here. But you're not doing as well as I thought you would be."

"What do you know about my life to be worried?" Jaehyun asked. He heard how sharp his own voice was but like a lot of things it couldn't be undone. 

"I'm just worried, Jaehyun, sorry. You're on your own too much. You talk back to me when a lot of people haven't. It's not normal."

"You're not real. You're not even here." These words came out too harshly but Jaehyun didn't mind things like that as he snatched his hand away from the distant contact, nor when he saw the way Sangyeon held back his own words like he really wasn't there. And then the top of the sofa and the poorly painted walls became clearer and Sangyeon really was gone. 

Jaehyun turned off the programme he'd put on for Sangyeon and found himself some other background noise whilst he occupied himself with messages he'd delayed replying to for too long. He wasn't alone. 

*

Juyeon was smiling when he returned to the living room from the bathroom via the kitchen. It was a strange smile though so even if Jaehyun tried to ignore it, he ended up asking because he'd only get more annoyed by noticing it. 

"What's with you?" 

"Nothing," Juyeon said, clearly a lie. He settled comfortably on the sofa and tucked his legs beneath himself as he faced the TV. But Jaehyun wasn't going to press play on the stupid movie Juyeon wanted to watch (third in their marathon for the afternoon after they'd been to the gym that morning) until he got the distraction out of the way. 

"Spit it out or get out."

"Don't be mean," Juyeon said, furrow just slightly serious as he tried to brighten his tone. "It's weird so I don't know how you'll take it."

No matter what Juyeon's delicate predicament was, Jaehyun was sure he'd take it better than he was able to take the hesitance. "Just say it. You're going to annoy me more by being like this."

"Please don't be offended," Juyeon said, hesitance still ruling his tone, "But I think you have a ghost."

"A ghost," Jaehyun repeated. 

He already knew he had a ghost but he was of the impression that the ghost had vacated the premises. It had been days since the last time Jaehyun had seen Sangyeon so it made sense to assume Sangyeon had gone off to spend time pestering his family or any other friends he wanted to visit from beyond the grave. But he might have just popped back in to see if Jaehyun was ready to pay attention to a figment of his imagination. 

"Yeah," Juyeon said. "So I went to your bathroom and a bunch of shampoos fell off the little shelf into the bath."

"Are you sure that wasn't just you?" Jaehyun asked. "You being clumsy isn't proof of a ghost."

"I did consider that. But then I couldn't find the soap when I was washing my hands and it just appeared in front of me, and was on my way back here the towel I dried my hands with tried to follow me out of the bathroom."

"So you're saying the ghost is in my bathroom?" Jaehyun asked. Juyeon nodded. "And you're saying it was in the bathroom whilst you were using the toilet?" 

Juyeon's cheeks pinked. If this were any other time Jaehyun might think Juyeon was just being an idiot. But Jaehyun knew there was a ghost that was never as helpful as they wanted to be. 

Jaehyun pressed play on the TV remote and tossed it to Juyeon. "Stay here. I'll catch up."

"Are you going to fight the ghost?"

"If I have to," Jaehyun muttered. 

Jaehyun didn't want to actually fight Sangyeon. For one thing it wasn't physically possible, but he also didn't want to be overheard arguing with someone who didn't exist. So Jaehyun shut the bathroom door and was very quiet about initiating a conversation. 

"Hey, idiot, why are you perving on my friends doing their business?" 

"That's not what happened," Sangyeon protested as he materialised right in front of Jaehyun. 

Jaehyun blinked away his surprise and hoped he did a good enough job of pretending he'd never reacted in the first place. 

"You can't lie to me. Juyeon said you were in here the entire time."

"I wasn't watching him," Sangyeon said. "I left when he came in! But then I didn't want to accidentally bump into you so I had to go back in when I thought he was done and he was about to wash his hands with your hair conditioner. Not even shampoo, Jaehyun."

None of this really mattered. Jaehyun had to give Sangyeon the benefit of the doubt and assume he really was good about giving people privacy. The fact was, Sangyeon was here. 

"Why are you here, Sangyeon?" Jaehyun asked. 

Today seemed like a day doomed to irritate Jaehyun with the reluctance of other people. But Jaehyun had to wait, leaning against the bathroom door as Sangyeon made something up. 

"I came to see you."

"After last time? I don't need you here telling me you're worried about me again or something stupid like that. You're dead. Worry about yourself."

Sangyeon just about managed a smile. "One thing at a time."

"You should go. At least until Juyeon leaves," Jaehyun said. Sangyeon nodded. "I should go. I don't know whether I would be able to come back soon though."

"Why?" Jaehyun asked. "Before you were here basically every day. What's different now? Why wouldn't you be able to come back?" 

"Do you even want me to come back?" Sangyeon asked. Jaehyun did want Sangyeon to come back, if only because the novelty hadn't yet worn off and there weren't too many people he knew who were visited by a friend from the past. But Jaehyun couldn't say any of that. Sangyeon’s mouth set in a tight line and his shoulders sagged. "I think the first time I was summoned was an accident and nobody knew how to send me back. But they found the right person so they only let me come back again because I begged them."

"You were summoned?" 

Sangyeon nodded. "I haven't been hanging around here for three years. I was somewhere else. But because the people that brought me back didn't want me they just let me do whatever. So I just did whatever I was doing before I died."

Jaehyun felt stupid as he watched his hand pass right through the air where Sangyeon’s wrist should have been. He knew he wasn't able to reach him when he started moving but seeing it confirmed, feeling the nothingness of an absent person, wound up the idiocy in Jaehyun's throat. 

"What is that supposed to mean, stupid?" 

"You're calling me stupid whilst asking a question like that?" Sangyeon asked. But his fingers were twitching too, like he was about to repeat Jaehyun's mistake and reach out for a hand he couldn't touch. 

"Yeah. You're stupid. What were you doing before you died?" 

"I was on my way to see you," Sangyeon said quietly. 

Jaehyun closed his eyes to catch anything he could of himself before Sangyeon saw. But what did it matter when a person who didn't exist anymore was telling Jaehyun something he'd wondered about and imagined when he was feeling particularly sorry for himself over an incident that had nothing to do with him. Jaehyun's imagination was too much at a time like this. 

"How? We didn't know each other anymore. Three years ago we were strangers again."

"I'd asked around," Sangyeon said. "They say you never forget a first love, and I was curious if you were the person I remembered you were. So I was on my way to surprise you. I wanted to reconnect."

Jaehyun chanced looking at Sangyeon and wished he hadn't. The person he remembered Sangyeon to be was annoying, often too wrapped in his own perspective to consider whether he was overreacting to perceived slights. But he was also a person who couldn't leave Jaehyun alone and Jaehyun hadn't been able to leave Sangyeon alone either until he grew too weary of having to be right all the time. 

"Why did you do that?" 

"It was worth the risk of you turning me down and telling me to get out of your sight," Sangyeon said. 

"Was it worth dying for?" 

Sangyeon grinned. "Obviously I never knew that would happen. But if I had made it here three years ago, would you have been interested in trying again? We were both older and I like to think I would have known how to right all the wrongs on my part." 

Jaehyun wasn't so sure about that. If Sangyeon knew what he'd done wrong before he wouldn't be asking this question when Jaehyun was five years past their break up. Jaehyun was supposed to be over things and the question was something he'd not even bothered to consider simply because it didn't matter. But even if he claimed this to be his truth, Jaehyun was wondering about it enough to put words like this into the mouth of a person who couldn't ask. 

Regardless, the question was there for Jaehyun to answer. 

"I don't know," Jaehyun said. Sangyeon’s expression didn't change too much but the initial sting was there. If Jaehyun had asked he would have wanted the affirmative too but he knew he wouldn't have deserved it. Sangyeon, however, maybe even without the pitiable perspective of being a person with nothing, was harder to measure by what he deserved. 

Jaehyun barely remembered the person he was three years ago, before the accident - certainly not as intimately to know his own thoughts if an ex he thought about too often came to find him. He can remember three years ago, after the accident. After hearing about the accident, Jaehyun couldn't quite get his head around the fact and he had thought about it, perhaps too self-absorbed at the time to consider what the loss meant outside of the lense of his own detriment. So he couldn't really answer candidly. 

"If you asked me now I would probably say yes. But I don't know about before. I was mad at you for a long time. And I am still mad at you now."

"When will you stop being mad at me?" Sangyeon asked. He was almost there. Sangyeon’s hand was almost against Jaehyun's jaw, just inside the field of vision, and he was so close and Jaehyun had been held like this by Sangyeon before. He could recall the way Sangyeon would wrap his left arm around Jaehyun's waist and sway. And if Jaehyun hoped hard enough he could just about feel it too. 

"I'll stop being mad when you come back to me."

"I'm sorry," Sangyeon said. And with the words against Jaehyun's neck it almost sounded like Sangyeon meant them. 

*

"Juyeon told me your flat is haunted," Changmin said as he passed Jaehyun the tube of superglue. Jaehyun uncapped the glue but wasn't sure he could actually go ahead and use it when Changmin was bringing something like that up when they were supposed to be putting the finishing touches on their figurines. 

"Haunted?" Eric asked as he wriggled forwards on the carpet to sit tight against Jaehyun's side at the coffee table. "By a ghost or something?" 

"Exactly," Changmin said. "Juyeon said a ghost lives in Jaehyun's bathroom."

"In your bathroom? That's kind of weird. Does that mean the ghost has seen you naked?" 

"He doesn't live in my bathroom. He left ages ago." Jaehyun said. He tried to sound like he didn't care so much but his voice wasn't as steady as it should have been and there was no point in attempting to hold pieces together with his hands. 

"He? So you've met the ghost? What was it like?" Eric asked. He had his hands ready to hide his face and Jaehyun wished he could think it was cute. 

"Apparently," Changmin said, "When Jaehyun went to get rid of the ghost he was gone for a while. Juyeon said that it must have been a strong ghost that drained Jaehyun’s energy because when he got back he said he was sick and Juyeon should go home."

Eric knocked into the table in shock but Jaehyun didn't even have it in himself to tell him off. At least telling Eric off would have been a change in subject from the time Jaehyun's first-love had to leave things as unfinished as they were. Instead he was stuck trying to work out what he should say to Eric asking just how strong the ghost was. 

"He was very strong. It took me days to recover after sending him on his way," Jaehyun said in as detached a voice as he could muster. 

It did take Jaehyun a few days to recover so it wasn't a total lie but it wasn't anything as cool as Eric assumed it was. 

"That's so scary," Eric said with his hand against his chest. "Weren't you scared?" 

"I wasn't scared," Jaehyun said. "But don't come to me if you run into any ghosts. I'd be scared of any other ghost. The ghost in my bathroom was my friend."

"You're friends with a ghost?" Eric asked. 

"That sounds so weird," Changmin said. "I don't think I want to know anything about ghosts you're friendly with. I thought it was a joke."

"I wish it was," Jaehyun said. 

"If one comes around again and it's real, I'll try to fight it for you," Changmin said. "I could do it couldn't I?" 

Jaehyun shrugged. "Probably."

"I'll trust you to save me," Eric said seriously to Changmin. 

Jaehyun kept his mouth shut but still couldn't manage the steadiness to stick together two parts of the leg he wanted to work out. He passed the tube of glue to Eric and decided he'd do better just assisting for today. 

Instead of packing away the pieces from his own unfortunately never-to-be-assembled model, Jaehyun headed into the kitchen to sort out something to eat. It was when he had assembled most of the ingredients he needed for what purports to be the easiest of the recipes in his cookbook that he received a message from a friend. 

'Changmin said your ghost was real,' read Younghoon's text. It wasn't great to read that. Jaehyun didn't know what to reply, whether to tell Younghoon that he also knew the ghost or to lie and take back everything about the ghost. 

It didn't feel fair to Jaehyun that even knowledge of the ghost might not mean the same to anyone else as it did to him. Even after breaking up, the short relationship Jaehyun had with Sangyeon stretched on longer than it should simply for the fact that there were mutual friends between them who eliminated the possibility of living without any reminders. But Jaehyun was determined for them to be the strangers Sangyeon wanted them to be so he'd ignored any mention of someone he'd loved. 

And now Jaehyun knew he hadn't made any of the right decisions. He was mad at Sangyeon for not trusting him just because circumstances had changed, and he was mad at Sangyeon for making mountains out of molehill problems which could have easily been quashed if he had any sense. Because Jaehyun was mad the obvious answer had been to fester in his spite but giving up on being the bigger person had ended up burying Jaehyun under a mountain he couldn't dig himself out of. 

Jaehyun plated up the meatballs made according to the recipe. The saffron rice he'd made looked grainy in ways he wished it didn't but it was an attempt at something interesting and Changmin and Eric were the least likely of everyone Jaehyun knew to complain about it. 

"This is good," Changmin said. "You should make it for everyone next time."

"We should get together for Juyeon's birthday," Eric agreed. "I think he'd like it if you made something like this."

"I think he'd prefer going to a restaurant where there's a guarantee that the food is good," Jaehyun pointed out. 

Eric closed his mouth and fiddled with the model Changmin had single-handedly assembled. And then he sent Changmin a significant look that Jaehyun would have had to be blind to miss. 

Changmin cleared his throat. "When one of my aunts had an issue with ghosts they got an exorcist to cleanse the area. Have you ever tried looking into one of those?" 

Jaehyun must have done a worse job than he thought with the recipe because his mouthful of food lost its flavour painfully quickly. It might be worth moving on to something else and never revisiting that particular recipe again. 

Jaehyun took a sip of water to wash away the lingering numbing blandness inside his mouth. "I don't need an exorcist."

"But what if a scary ghost comes and hurts you?" 

"I've already been hurt," Jaehyun muttered. The words hardly meant anything but Changmin and Eric gasped like there was really something wrong. Jaehyun sighed. "You two are hurting me by acting like I am weak enough to lose to a ghost."

At least Changmin and Eric both looked sheepish at that. There was a tiny fragment of peace in the fact that they didn't bring it up again. 

*

Jaehyun's mind was fuzzy. Not in the good way where the waviness of his surroundings was something he could ease himself into and not worry too much about anything outside of the nature of breathing. 

Jaehyun couldn't focus. His brain was spotty when he tried to do any of the things he had planned and the white noise was too much when he set that aside to look into activities which could relax him and take his mind off difficulties. But the expectation weighing down his shoulders made his head hurt and he couldn't stand not knowing why he was anticipating anything at all. 

There was no confusion as to the cause of the inattentiveness. Jaehyun was waiting for Sangyeon. 

Jaehyun was lying on his bed and staring at the ceiling and waiting for the chatter in his brain to die down as Sangyeon dispersed everything and created clarity. But Sangyeon wouldn't come. 

Even if Sangyeon couldn't come on his own it wasn't impossible. This was something Jaehyun should have stopped caring so much about but he was right back to where he was when he was sixteen and wondered if he could do anything to attract someone better left alone. 

Before it was easy. Jaehyun was handsome and funny and he could get away with saying a lot. Getting someone interested had been easy even then. The only issue now was the physical barrier. Because Jaehyun had to believe that Sangyeon had the desire to at least talk to him again. He had to research so he could make sure. 

*

The place Jaehyun ended up looked suspicious. He wasn't so desperate and careless that he'd go to the first place he found from a web search but there were no guarantees of legitimacy from the reviews he found for the several mediums and psychics in his local area. He had to take his chances with the medium who had the most (potentially false) reviews in the search results. 

The medium's office was in a building block with two takeaway restaurants sharing the ground floor and a couple of other businesses renting offices on the three floors above it. The upkeep of the building wasn't exactly the greatest but the peeling signs for the businesses were visible in the windows and bolted to the wall in the case of a lawyer's office. 

Around the side of the building from the takeaway restaurants was a bulky wooden door. The door was weathered and scratched and it looked far older than the intercom bedside it. The medium's office was on the third floor and the buzzer for the office was at the bottom of the list. Jaehyun pressed the intercom button and waited for a reply. 

Going home might have worked out better for Jaehyun but he needed to at least try. 

"Yes?" 

"I have an appointment at quarter past six," Jaehyun said, not really sure if this was anything like a doctor's appointment or a barber's appointment. There was no response aside from the loud buzz of the intercom and the door releasing. 

Inside the building there was not a lift and the staircase looked rickety but it was all Jaehyun had. Maybe if he died by plummeting through the stairs it must have been a fate forseen by the medium. There was no point in attempting to avert it. 

At the top of the stairs Jaehyun found the right door. Inside was as murky and dim as the stairwell but he supposed it was the intended aesthetic inside rather than the disrepair and dying light bulb of the communal areas. 

The medium welcomed Jaehyun inside, a woman with large eyes who was younger than Jaehyun had expected even though his booking was made in an app. 

"Jaehyun, is it?" The medium asked as she gestured to a sofa at the centre of the room. The sofa was draped with too many throws and sat opposite a winged armchair around a low circular table. The desk in the corner of the office was stacked with books around a computer and a lamp. The desk was most of the light source in the office aside from the tealights dotted around the circular table interspersed by crystals of varying colours. 

The flames on the candles flickered as Jaehyun took his seat. He nodded up at the medium and tried to moisten the dryness of his lips. 

"That's right. What was your name, sorry?" Jaehyun hoped his question was obvious enough. The name Madam Seven sounded a bit much for Jaehyun to have to say aloud. Even if the mystery of it was what the medium preferred, it was awkward when Jaehyun had to build himself up to actually come here. 

"You can call me Mimi," the medium said with a smile as she perched on the arm of her chair. "Would you like anything to drink?" 

"No thank you. I sort of want to just get to it."

Mimi nodded and pressed her lips together. She sat more comfortably in her chair. "You said you don't have anything from the person you want to get in touch with in the extra comments for your booking."

"That's right," Jaehyun confirmed. "We lost contact five years ago and then he died two years after that. But he came to see me last week. At least I think he did."

"It's possible," Mimi said. "How did he visit you?" 

"He said he was accidentally summoned by someone. They wanted to summon someone else but accidentally got him. And then Sangyeon - that's the name of my friend - said that because he wasn't needed he carried on doing what he had been before he died. Apparently that was visiting me."

It sounded ridiculous enough to Jaehyun but he had to be hopeful that it was helpful. 

"That's promising," Mimi said. "He might still be closer to our side than where he should be."

Mimi stood from her seat to fill a bowl with water. When she returned she made a lot of notes from all the things Jaehyun could recall about Sangyeon (even the stupid little things about the shoes he used to wear all the time and the way he'd always try to get Jaehyun to wear his jackets to go home), and she had Jaehyun magnetise a needle with careful strokes, and she lit incense which sweetened the air until it was so thick Jaehyun's mind felt woozy but he still made sure to blink himself awake and scrape the magnet along the needle between his fingers. 

Mimi took the needle from Jaehyun and floated it on a cork in the middle of the bowl. It spun with the circular motion of her hands and it was all very impressive if not for the fact that Jaehyun would rather have skipped cheap tricks like this to just try to contact Sangyeon. Not that Jaehyun dared to open his mouth to say as much. 

"We're going to try to talk to your friend," Mimi said. "Please don't be discouraged if we don't manage it today. We don't know where he is and we don't have anything that belongs to him which might have tethered him to our world. It isn't very likely that you'll see him as someone else might get pulled over by the non-specific summoning. But don't lose hope. We'll try again on another day and no matter how many times you are willing to try I will help you."

Mimi's tone was certain and the brightness in her voice sounded so genuine along with her gummy smile. But Jaehyun couldn't help but feel more dubious about the whole thing. It was alright for her to promise persistence when each session was money in her pocket. Jaehyun just wanted to see Sangyeon again and he was just the sort of desperate sap who paid Mimi's bills. 

"Let's do it, I guess," Jaehyun said. 

Mimi began. She chose crystals from around the table and had Jaehyun warm them in his hands before removing the chain around her neck to scry with a blazing garnet above the compass magnetised by Jaehyun. 

The words Mimi spoke were indistinct aside from her instructions and when the candlelight flickered more wildly at her words she gestured to Jaehyun and asked him to speak the name of the person he was looking for. 

Jaehyun had to let something of himself go. He said, "Sangyeon, it's me. Are you there?" 

The candles snuffed at once and Mimi stoppered her words. And from beside Jaehyun the sofa cushions creaked dully. 

"Are you still mad at me?" 

Jaehyun's breath froze in his lungs and he folded in on himself wondering just how many times Mimi had seen people break just like this. Jaehyun's chest ached and he didn't know what to do while Mimi re-lit candles on the circular table around the bowl. 

The flames flickered and shadows shivered on Mimi's face. When Jaehyun could bring himself to look at Sangyeon he watched the erratic wobble of the dark shapes moving on his face just the same. 

"I'm so mad at you," Jaehyun finally said.

Sangyeon smiled, a sad downturn to his expression but Jaehyun knew that look too well. He'd always attempted smiles like these when he never really had the heart for happiness. 

Jaehyun didn't want to see an expression like that when Sangyeon already looked so tired and pitiful wearing the clothes he'd stolen from Jaehyun before. Jaehyun reached out his hand, hated himself for flinching at a touch as solid as flesh when it was all he'd wanted when seeing Sangyeon the last time. They were lucky. Jaehyun shouldn't have even been allowed this.

Sangyeon couldn't take his eyes off their singular point of contact. His eyes softened to a melting point where their littlest fingers touched on the sofa cushion between them. 

"I don't know what I could do to make things up to you," Sangyeon said. 

"You don't need to do anything. You can't."

Sangyeon nodded, almost like he agreed, but he lifted his gaze to meet Jaehyun's. 

"In seventy years, or whenever it is that you that you eventually end up in the same place as me, do you think you might be interested in giving things another go?" Sangyeon asked. He cleared his throat and pulled his smile high enough that it looked like it could be true. "You'll be older then and you can tell me all the things I'm doing wrong so we can finally get things right."

Jaehyun laughed even though he wanted to cry. Sangyeon was giving him a lifetime for an eternity. Jaehyun saw the memories the pair of them had left behind and watched as Sangyeon smiled too. He still had years of being mad at Sangyeon ahead of him but if he gripped Sangyeon’s hand tightly enough he could pretend they were already getting things right. 


End file.
